The smell of antiseptic and the soft beeping noise of hospital equipment filled the air when Farid first opened his eyes since he got into the accident.
His head hurt with a sharp, pain-like sensation radiating up from the back of his neck, as if every part of him had been pounded—pretty near what did, in fact, happen because he had, after all, been hit by a car.
Above, the light bulbs buzzed softly and cast the room in a hard, cold light.
He first saw his mother's tear-streaked face. Her red eyes showed relief as she tightly gripped his hand.
"Farid, oh, my baby, you're awake!" She cried as she hugged him hard, making his wounded ribs ache.
He winced at the pain but did not loosen his grip. His mother's hug was welcoming, pushing him out of the icy bleakness still lingering in his head.
Later, the doctors came. Their white coats were pristine, and their voices calming. They felt his pulse, shone a light into his eyes, and asked him his name, the date, and what he could remember.
Farid answered as best he could, though his thoughts were muddled, as if trying to finish a puzzle only half the pieces.
When he described the voice he had heard in the darkness during his unconsciousness—speaking of a curse—the doctors shared a quick glance and wrote it off as merely a coma hallucination.
"It's normal," Dr. Patel said, adjusting his glasses. "Your brain was traumatized. Dreams can be very realistic in that state."
Farid nodded, but he couldn't be certain. The voice was too distinct and deliberate. 'You are blessed, and you're going to live the hardest life.'
The words still echoed in his mind, stark and tangible, like a stone cast into the quiet of a pool. He said nothing about it to his mother. She was already worried enough.
A month went by, and Farid was once again in his own small city apartment, but life was more of a riddle.
His mother made sure that she did not leave his side the whole time, always getting ready to prepare something for him to eat: his favorite dish of spiced lamb stew and flatbread or just dropping by to ask how he was doing each hour.
His friends came over, joking and laughing, but Farid kept his distance, as though he was watching their life from the other side of a window.
School had resumed again, with the usual boring classes, homework, and dodging bullies in the corridors.
Farid was average in everything. Average grades, average looks, average dreams of maybe one day becoming a graphic designer. He was not the whiz kid, and he was okay with it. Or at least was, until that day when the world decided to remind him of the curse.
It was a Thursday afternoon with a dark grey rain-smelling sky. Farid was hanging out in the school courtyard after class, shooting the breeze with his friend Ansel, a skinny kid with a wild shock of curls and a fascination with conspiracy theories.
Ansel was in the midst of a rant about the surveillance state when the ground shook beneath their feet.
At first, Farid thought it was his imagination, or a trick his still-recovering body was playing on him. But then there was another shaking far more violent, a low rumble that grew into a deafening roar.
The brick walls of the school shook, and before Farid could even think about what was happening, the entire building fell down in a massive cloud of dust and rubble.
There were deafening screams in the air as students and teachers scrambled for cover.
Farid remained where he was, his heart pounding as a chunk of ceiling came flying towards him with velocity.
Time sped up, and all Farid saw was the flying rubble of the Collapse and the horror of death. Then that voice spoke again in his head, creeping in like smoke.
"May I take your place?"
The words were cold, calculated, and filled with something sinister. Farid's lips were dry, and his body was pinned beneath a concrete slab. Fire coursed through his chest, and he could barely gasp for air.
Panic set in, and no matter the consequences, he screamed, "Okay!"
Darkness descended immediately.
When he opened his eyes, he was in the courtyard, whole. The school was in the distance, ordinary, as though nothing had malfunctioned. Ansel was next to him, patting his back. "Yo, Farid, why you just standing there like a zombie? You okay?"
Farid blinked in surprise. Everything was as usual, the same gray sky, and students still lingered like any typical day. He put a hand on his chest, expecting pain, but there was none. "What… what happened?" he stuttered.
Ansel scowled. "Uh, we were talking about drones, and you zoned out. Sure you're alright? You've been weird ever since the accident."
Farid shook his head, trying to understand what had occurred. A hallucination? A daydream? But it had felt so real—the concrete on his skin, the strange voice in his mind. He looked over at the school building, waiting for it to fall down again, but it stood still.
Farid could not sleep that night. He sat on his bed, looking at the ceiling of his bedroom, thinking about what the spooky voice in his head had said.
''You are cursed''.
Farid did not know what it meant and why the world returned to normal as if nothing had happened after he somehow agreed to let the voice take his place.
The following day, he tried to act normal. He went to school, ate his way through his classes as usual, and acted like all was well. But he still felt jittery.
Ansel had seen that something was amiss with him and took him to their favorite diner in town after school, a casual spot where they normally hung out.
Alright, spill the beans," Ansel shoved a fry into his mouth. "You've been acting like you've seen a ghost. What's wrong?"
Farid stalled. Ansel was his best friend, but how could he explain something so confusing to him? Finally, he took a deep breath and told him everything.
The freaky voice he heard while he was in a coma, the school collapsing, and the strange reset. Ansel's eyes narrowed in interest as he listened.
"Dude," Ansel exclaimed when Farid finished, "That's some crazy stuff. You're telling me you died, you made a deal with some strange freaky voice, and then. what? Time went backward?"
"I don't know," Farid replied, prodding his burger. "Perhaps I'm going crazy.".
Ansel whispered, leaning in as though sharing a secret. "Or maybe you're not crazy. Think about it this way. You said the voice mentioned a curse, right? What if this is some kind of old magic or something? Like you're the hero in a fantasy novel."
Farid snorted. "I'm no hero. I'm just some guy who got run over by a car.".
But you didn't die," Ansel said. "Now you're having weird visions and hearing creepy voices. That's not cool, dude. You need to get to the bottom of this curse.".
Farid wished he could just forget about it, but Ansel's words still lingered in his head. The voice he had heard didn't feel like a dream. It felt too clear, too purposeful. And was the school collapse real as well? Or was his mind just playing tricks on him.
Farid tried to get back to normal over the course of the next few days. He went to school, helped his mother with chores, and tried not to think about the voice. However, strange things started to happen. They were small at first but hard to ignore.
His phone would glitch, showing threatening messages like "You cannot escape" before rebooting. He'd see shadows darting out of the corner of his eye, only to vanish when he looked. At night, he had dreams of darkness, the voice promising pain and suffering.
One night, Farid was walking home from the library when something felt wrong with the air and the streetlights blinked. Farid shuddered and quickened his step.
Then he heard it. A low, threatening growl from the alley to his right. He froze, his heart pounding, as two eyes glowed into existence out of the darkness.
The creature stepped out of the shadows, and Farid's heart almost stopped in fear.
There was a giant dragon in front of him, its glossy, rainbow-coloured scales glistening like black polished wood. It had wings, folded at the back, and a powerful tail that ruined the pavement, shattering it into pieces.
Farid's eyes could not believe what they were witnessing. A real dragon, like in a fantasy novel, was staring straight at him.
"You cannot escape me," growled the dragon, its voice this time real and not in Farid's mind. Its mouth opened in a yawn, and rows of sharp pointed teeth were visible. "You made a deal with me. Your life now belongs to me."
Farid's legs reacted prior to thinking. He began to run immediately and the earth shook beneath the dragon's roar behind him. Farid's heart was racing, his breath burning but he continued to run, fast.
The Curse was real, the voice was real, and now a dragon was pursuing him through the streets of the city.
He recalled the words of Ansel while running:
This is where Farid's story begins.